Islamabad: A Christian girl was killed allegedly by a Muslim man in Pakistan after her parents rejected a marriage proposal sent by him as per the ‘Express Tribune’ newspaper. The deceased, Sonia, and the accused, Shehzad, were residents of the Old Airport area in Rawalpindi, the report said Sunday.
The local police station officers claimed to have arrested an accused named Faizan. Raids were being carried out to arrest the prime suspect Shehzad, the paper said.
Shehzad’s mother is said to have sent her son’s proposal for Sonia. However, her parents refused as she was to marry Faizan. On the day of the incident, the girl was travelling with Faizan on the highway. Then out of nowhere Shehzad opened fire on her, the paper said, citing police.
The police said that, as per the preliminary investigation, the murder appears to have been carried out of personal resentment. However, the deputy inspector general (DIG) of police said the police were investigating all aspects.
Incident involving forced conversion of minority non-Muslim girls and subsequent marriage with Muslim men frequently surface in Pakistan.
Last month, a young Christian girl, Arzoo Raja, was reportedly abducted, forced to convert and marry a 44-year-old Muslim man in Karachi. Her parents filed a case which is still in the court.
Christians constitute around two per cent of the population in Muslim-dominated Pakistan. Karachi, Lahore and Faisalabad have a large Christian population. There are many Christian villages in the Punjab heartland, while there is also a sizable population in the deeply conservative north-western Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, particularly in Peshawar city.